For Tonight
by NCISgirl1527
Summary: After the con in London, Sophie is shaken.  Can Nate help her work through it or will all the unsaid things between them get in the way?  Sophie/Nate friendship bordering on romance.  Spoilers for the King George Job.  Enjoy.


_**Okay this is my first one shot in a month or so but I am very happy with it. It follows the King George Job and so there will be spoilers. Anyway. I loved that episode so much because Sophie is my favorite character and it gave us some interesting information about her. Anyway. Here is the story.**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Nate or Sophie. If I did you could be sure that they would not have been dancing around each other for three seasons…actually I am not sure about that…never mind…I still do not own them.**_

_**Spoilers: The King George Job**_

Nate crept carefully down the stairs of his apartment trying not to make any noise. He had heard someone enter his apartment and wanted to be sure the person was friendly before he alerted them to his presence. As he reached the bottom of the stairs he peered into the living room.

He relaxed considerably. There was someone in his apartment, but it was just Sophie. Of course he probably should be more disgruntled that she would just walk in and make her self at home, but he was having difficulty with that given that it was Sophie. She was sitting curled in the corner of his couch looking intently at her tightly clasped hands. After watching her for a few minutes he walked over to sit in the chair closest to her end of the couch.

"What are you doing here? Sophie asked him a little shocked as he sat down.

"It's my apartment," he reminded her, "I live here."

"Oh," she replied with a nervous laugh, "Right."

They fell into silence and Nate carefully studied the face of the woman in front of him. She was not wearing any of her usual make-up and her hair was a little unkempt looking. Maybe it did not mean anything, but he knew that Sophie hated to be anything other that absolutely stunning. Or what she considered to be stunning because as far as he was concerned she was always drop-dead gorgeous…. There was also something in her eyes. He could not exactly place what it was, but the sparkle she usually had was missing.

"What's wrong Sophie?" he asked her finally.

Sophie closed her eyes and swallowed. She knew she could not get away with lying to Nate. He knew her better than that, and she did not want to lie to him anyway. That left her one option: tell him the truth. That was not a particularly appealing option either. Finally she took at deep breath and spoke.

"This con just really got to me," she told him quietly. It was not a lie, but it was not quiet the whole truth either.

"There is a reason you shouldn't run a con that you get emotionally invested in," he reminded her, "It makes it that much harder to walk away."

"I did not have a choice," she told him sharply her eyes flying open, "Not on this one, and I was never going to be able to walk away. Not completely." Her hair fell across her face, and Nate was reminded of her sitting at the table in London with the Countess of Kensington.

"Does this have to do with William?" he asked her a little hesitantly.

"No," she replied, "Yes." There was a pause in which she shook her head. "I don't know," she told him, her voice deflated. "He's part of it, maybe even most of it, but not all of it."

"You want to talk about it?" he offered hoping that she would but knowing that there was an excellent chance that she would not.

There was another pause in which she considered his offer. She really did not want to tell anyone about it. She had kept it to herself for nearly a decade and would have liked to keep it that way. However their latest con had blown that plan all to bits, and in a way she felt Nate deserved to know. Maybe telling someone would dull the pain. She could use that because the pain she felt today was just as real and ran just as deep as it had eight years ago.

"He…I…" she took a deep breath before speaking. "I am a grifter. I have made dozens of men fall in love with me. I left them all behind after the con because that was how I lived. I trusted no one. I formed no attachments. You know what it is like out there. If you trust the wrong person, or many times any person at all, and you are dead."

Nate said nothing. Sophie rarely talked about the personal aspects of her life before the team, and only now did it occur to him that life hadn't been easy for her. She was right that he had been out there too, but in truth he had thought his life far lonelier than hers because she was always with some man or another. Only did he realize that she could never have trusted those men and never have let her guard down with them. That kind of life must have been down right lonely at times.

"His heart was not the first I broke nor will it be the last," she continued almost calmly, "but he was one of the two men I ever loved. He was different from the rest. He saw me for who I was and he loved me for that not for whatever mask I was using. He made me feel like I was special."

"He was a mark?" Nate asked.

"No," Sophie replied with a shake of the head, "we were engaged."

Nate's immediate reaction was jealousy. However that was quickly mixed with and over come by a feeling of sympathy towards Sophie. "What happened?"

"I got scared and I ran of the night before the wedding," she admitted ruefully, "I just left. For the next six months I stole artwork from all over Europe while I worked up the courage to go back and face him. Finally I decided it was time to go back, but…" Sophie could feel the lump rising in her throat, but she kept talking. "He was dead," she choked out. "Auntie told me that he started drinking the day I left, and one morning he just never work up."

Finally she could not fight the tears back any longer, and they began to fall, unchecked down her cheeks. "It was all my fault," she whispered, "I killed him."

Nate's heart broke as he watched Sophie crumple. She seemed so small and broken, and at that moment he would have down anything in the world to take her pain away. He did not even think about what he was doing. He moved to sit next to her on the couch, and pulled her shaking form into his arms.

Sophie wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him. She no longer cared what he though of her right now. Tonight she did not want to be invincible. She just wanted someone to hold her. She rested her head on Nate's shoulder and let the tears fall.

As he held her, Nate was reminded of another woman whose heart had been broken eight years ago. He though of all those nights that Maggie had cried herself to sleep after Sam's death, and self-hatred rose up inside him. He had been to busy nursing his own pain in alcohol to be there for her when it mattered most, and he would never forgive himself for that. He should have been there for Maggie and he never was, but he still had a chance to be there for Sophie and he was going to take it.

After a while Sophie's sobs quieted and disappeared completely. It was only then that she became aware of Nate's hand tracing soft circles on her back. She lifted her head to look at him.

"It didn't mean to do that," she told him with a smile and a laugh, "I must need sleep more than I thought." She pulled out of his arms and back to her corner of the couch.

"That's okay," he told her gently completely ignoring the second part of her statement. He knew perfectly well that the smile and laugh were both forced. She was trying to put her walls back up, and he would walk through fire before he let her suffer alone. "You feel any better?"

She looked at him for a moment, and he saw in her eyes that she was trying to figure out the game he was playing. Evidently she decided he was not playing a game because she dropped her act and nodded.

"Some," she admitted looking back at him.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked hoping tat she would not retreat back into her safe little cave where no one could touch her.

"Of course," she replied with a nod, and from her expression he could tell she was expecting a serious question.

He shook his head. "Never mind," he told her. The question could wait. Sophie did not need to be dealing with it tonight anyway. He might ask her someday, but tonight was not the time. Tonight he just needed to be there for her.

"Thank you for letting me crash your apartment," she told him after a time.

"You know you're welcome anytime," he told her taking both her hands in his, "Day or night the door is always open for you."

"I appreciate that Nate," she told him, "I really do."

There was yet another pause, but this one was not stressful or loaded. It was just a quiet moment where their eyes met and the world vanished. Each had their own secrets, which they would share someday…or maybe they would not. It did not matter. The only thing that mattered to them was the other's presence. Tonight that was more than enough.

_**Did you like it? Please tell me. Please Review. **_


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